Nigger
Encyclopedia
Nigger is a noun
in the English language
, most notable for its usage in a pejorative
context to refer to black people
(generally people of Sub-Saharan Africa
n descent), and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur. The word originated as a term used in a neutral context to refer to black people, as a variation of the Spanish
/Portuguese
noun negro
, a descendant of the Latin
adjective niger, meaning the color "black
".
(black) ' onMouseout='HidePop("7566")' href="/topics/Grammatical_case">grammatical case
, grammatical gender
, and grammatical number
besides nominative
masculine singular, is nigr-, the r is trilled
).
In the Colonial America
of 1619, John Rolfe
used negars in describing the African slaves
shipped to the Virginia colony. Later American English
spellings, neger and neggar, prevailed in a northern colony, New York under the Dutch
, and in metropolitan Philadelphia’s Moravia
n and Pennsylvania Dutch
communities; the African Burial Ground in New York City
originally was known by the Dutch name "Begraafplaats van de Neger" (Cemetery of the Negro); an early US occurrence of neger in Rhode Island
, dates from 1625. An alternative word for African Americans was the English word, "Black", used by Thomas Jefferson
in his Notes on the State of Virginia
. Among Anglophones, the word nigger was not always considered derogatory, because it then denoted “black-skinned”, a common Anglophone usage. Nineteenth-century English (language) literature features usages of nigger without racist connotation, e.g. the Joseph Conrad
novella
The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'
(1897). Moreover, Charles Dickens
and Mark Twain
created characters who used the word as contemporary usage. Twain, in the autobiographic book Life on the Mississippi
(1883), used the term within quotes, indicating reported usage, but used the term "negro" when speaking in his own narrative persona.
In the United Kingdom and the Anglophone world, nigger denoted the dark-skinned (non-white) African and Asian (i.e., from India
or nearby) peoples colonized
into the British Empire, and "dark-skinned foreigners" — in general.
By the 1900s, nigger had become a pejorative word. In its stead, the term colored
became the mainstream alternative to negro and its derived terms. Abolitionists
in Boston
, Massachusetts
, posted warnings to the Colored People of Boston and vicinity. Writing in 1904, journalist Clifton Johnson documented the "opprobrious" character of the word nigger, emphasizing that it was chosen in the South precisely because it was more offensive than "colored." Established as mainstream American English usage, the word colored features in the organizational title of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
, reflecting the members’ racial identity
preference at the 1909 foundation. In the Southern United States
, the local American English dialect
changes the pronunciation of negro to nigra. Linguistically, in developing American English, in the early editions of A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806), lexicographer
Noah Webster
suggested the neger new spelling
in place of negro.
By the late 1960s, the social progress achieved by group in the United States such as the Black Civil Rights Movement (1955–68), had legitimized the racial identity
word black as mainstream American English usage to denote black-skinned Americans of African ancestry. In the 90's, "Black" was later displaced in favor of the compound blanket term African American
. Moreover, as a compound word, African American resembles the vogue word Afro-American, an early-1970s popular usage. Currently, some black Americans continue to use the word nigger, often spelled as nigga
and niggah, without irony, to either neutral effect or as a sign of solidarity.
or nearby) peoples colonized
into the British Empire, and "dark-skinned foreigners" — in general.
In A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926), H. W. Fowler states that applying the word nigger to "others than full or partial negroes" is "felt as an insult by the person described, & betrays in the speaker, if not deliberate insolence, at least a very arrogant inhumanity"; but the second edition (1965) states: "N. has been described as 'the term that carries with it all the obloquy and contempt and rejection which whites have inflicted on blacks.' ".
Victorian writer
Rudyard Kipling
used it in 'How the Leopard Got His Spots' and 'A Counting-Out Song' to illustrate the usage of the day. Likewise, P. G. Wodehouse
used the phrase “Nigger minstrels” in Thank You, Jeeves
(1934), the first Jeeves–Bertie novel, in admiration of their artistry and musical tradition.
As recently as the 1950s, it may have been acceptable British usage to say niggers when referring to black people, notable in mainstream usages such as Nigger Boy–brand candy cigarettes, and the color nigger brown or simply nigger (dark brown);
however, by the 1970s the term was generally recognized as racist, offensive and potentially illegal along with the variants "nig-nog" and "golliwog". As recently as 2007, the term nigger brown reappeared — in the model label of a Chinese-made sofa, presumably regional Chinese usage of an out-dated form of English. Agatha Christie
's book Ten Little Niggers
was first published in London in 1939 and continued to appear under that title until the early 1980s, when it became And Then There Were None.
said, “There’s a certain rhythmic seduction to the word. If you speak in a sentence, and you have to say cat, companion, or friend, as opposed to nigger, then the rhythmic presentation is off. That rhythmic language is a form of historical memory for black people... When Richard Pryor
came back from Africa, and decided to stop using the word onstage, he would sometimes start to slip up, because he was so used to speaking that way. It was the right word at the moment to keep the rhythm together in his sentence making.” Contemporarily, the implied racism
of the word nigger has rendered its usages social taboo
. In the US, magazines and newspapers often do not use it, instead printing “family-friendly” censored
versions, usually “n*gg*r”, “n**ger”, “n——”, and “the N-word”; however, historians and social activists, such as Dick Gregory
, criticize the euphemisms and their usage as intellectually dishonest, because using the euphemism “the N-word” instead of nigger robs younger generations of Americans of the full history of Black people in America.
Political: Louisiana
Governor Earl Long
used nigger in advocating full voting rights for Black Americans; in that time, like colored and negro, it was mainstream usage in the American South. In 1948, the Washington Post newspaper’s coverage of the presidential
campaign of the segregationist
politician Strom Thurmond
, employed the periphrasis
“the less-refined word for black people”. In explaining his refusal to be conscripted
to fight the Vietnam War
(1965–75), professional boxer Muhammed Ali said, “No Vietcong ever called me nigger”; later, his modified answer was the title No Vietnamese Ever Called Me Nigger (1968) of a documentary about the front-line lot of the US Army Black soldier in combat in Vietnam. An Ali biographer reports that, when interviewed by Robert Lipsyte
in 1966, the boxer actually said, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong”. The word can be invoked politically for effect. When Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick
came under intense scrutiny for his personal conduct in 2008, he deviated from an address to city council, saying, "In the past 30 days, I've been called a nigger more than any time in my entire life." Opponents accused him of "playing the Race Card
" to save his political life.
On February 28, 2007, the New York City Council
symbolically banned, with a formal resolution, the use of the word nigger; however, there is no penalty for using it. The New York City resolution also requests excluding from Grammy Award
consideration every song whose lyrics contain the word nigger, however Ron Roecker, vice president of communication for the Recording Academy doubts that it will have any effect on actual nominations.
Sport: In the first half of the twentieth century, before Major League Baseball
was racially integrated, dark-skinned and dark-complexion players were nicknamed Nig; examples are: Johnny Beazley
(1941–49), Joe Berry
(1921–22), Bobby Bragan
(1940–48), Nig Clarke
(1905–20), Nig Cuppy
(1892–1901), Nig Fuller
(1902), Johnny Grabowski
(1923–31), Nig Lipscomb (1937), Charlie Niebergall (1921–24), Nig Perrine (1907), and Frank Smith (1904–15). The 1930s movie The Bowery
with George Raft
and Wallace Beery
includes a NYC sports-bar named “Nigger Joe’s”.
said, “... it's time for somebody to lead all of America’s niggers”. Jerry Farber's 1967 protest, The Student as Nigger
invoked the word as a metaphor for the victims of an authoritarian society. In 1969, in the UK, in the course of being interviewed by a Nova
magazine reporter, artist Yoko Ono
said, “... woman is the nigger of the world”; three years later, her husband, John Lennon
, published the song “Woman is the Nigger of the World
” (1972) — about the virtually universal exploitation of woman — proved socially and politically controversial to US sensibilities. In 1978, singer Patti Smith
used the word in “Rock N Roll Nigger
”. In 1979, singer Elvis Costello
used nigger in “Oliver's Army
”, a state-of-the-world-today song which referred to people being shot dead trying to circumvent 'Checkpoint Charlie' at the Berlin Wall
to escape into West Germany. Later, the producers of the British talent show Stars in Their Eyes
forced a contestant to censor
one of its lines, changing “... all it takes is one itchy trigger — One more widow, one less white nigger” to the euphemistic
“... one less white figure”. Moreover, in his autobiography, White Niggers of America: The Precocious Autobiography of a Quebec “Terrorist” (1968), Pierre Vallières
, a Front de libération du Québec
leader refers to the oppression of the Québécois people in North America
.
In his memoir, All Souls, Michael Patrick MacDonald
describes how many white residents of the Old Colony housing project in South Boston used this meaning to degrade the people considered to be of lower status, whether white or black.
' words for 'black people'. Where there is a better understanding of the meaning of the English word nigger, speakers of other languages tend to be more careful with the homophonic words in their own language, or may sometimes adopt the word nigger to have a pejorative word for a 'black person'.
Some examples of how other languages refer to a black person in a neutral and in a pejorative way:
, a supporter of the Harlem Renaissance
(1920s–30s), provoked controversy in the black community with the title of his novel Nigger Heaven
(1926), wherein the usage increased sales; of the controversy, Langston Hughes
wrote:
In the US, the recurrent (reading curricula
) controversy about the vocabulary of the novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
(1885), by Mark Twain
— American literature (usually) taught in US schools — about the slave South, risks censorship
because of 215 (counted) occurrences of the word nigger, most refer to Jim, Huckleberry's escaped-slave raft-mate. Twain's advocates note that the novel
is composed in then-contemporary vernacular usage, not racist stereotype, because Jim, the black man, is a sympathetic character in the nineteenth-century Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The book was re-published in 2010 with edits removing "the 'N' word" as reported in Time online. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been the subject of controversy in Arizona, where a parent group's attempt to have it removed from a required reading list was struck down by the court.
Moreover, unlike the literary escaped slave Jim, antebellum slaves used the artifice of self-deprecation (known as "Uncle Tom
s"), in pandering to societal racist assumptions about the black man's low intelligence, by advantageously using the word nigger to escape the violence inherent to slavery. Implicit to "Uncle Tomming" was the unspoken reminder to white folk that a presumably inferior and sub-human person could not, reasonably, be held responsible for poorly realized work, a kitchen fire, or any such catastrophic offense. The artificial self-deprecation deflected responsibility, in hope of escaping the violent wraths of overseer and master. Using nigger as a self-referential identity
term also was a way of avoiding white suspicion, of encountering an intelligent slave, and so put whites at their ease. In context, a slave who referred to himself, or another black man, as a nigger presumed the master's perceiving him as a slave who has accepted his societally sub-ordinate role as private property, thus, not (potentially) subversive
of the authority
of the master's white supremacy
.
Other late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British literary usages suggest neutral usage. The popular Victorian era
entertainment, the Gilbert and Sullivan
operetta The Mikado
(1885) twice uses the word nigger. In the song As some day it may happen, the executioner, Ko-ko, sings of executing the "nigger serenader and the others of his race", personified by black-faced
singers singing minstrel songs
. In the song A more humane Mikado, the Mikado sings of the punishment for older women who dye their hair or wear corsets, to be "Blacked like a nigger/With permanent walnut juice." Both lyrics are usually changed for contemporary performances. In addition, Ten Little Niggers (1939) was the original British title of Agatha Christie
's novel And Then There Were None
, which has also been known by the alternate title Ten Little Indians.
The Reverend W. V. Awdry's The Railway Series
(1945–72) story Henry's Sneeze, originally described soot-covered boys with the phrase "as black as niggers". In 1972, after complaints, the description was edited to "as black as soot", in the subsequent editions. Rev. Awdry is known for Thomas the Tank Engine
(1946).
How the Leopard Got His Spots, in Just So Stories
(1902), by Rudyard Kipling
, tells of an Ethiopia
n man and a leopard
, both originally sand-colored, deciding to camouflage themselves with painted spots, for hunting in tropical forest. The story originally included a scene wherein the leopard (now spotted) asks the Ethiopian man why he does not want spots. In contemporary editions of How the Leopard Got His Spots, the Ethiopian's original reply: "Oh, plain black's best for a nigger", has been edited to, "Oh, plain black’s best for me." Again, Kipling uses the word in A Counting-Out Song (Land and Sea Tales for Scouts and Guides, 1923), the rhyme reads: "Eenie Meenie Mainee, Mo
! Catch a nigger by the toe!"
In short story, The Basement Room (1935), by Graham Greene
, the (sympathetic) servant character, Baines, tells the admiring boy, son of his employer, of his African British colony service, "You wouldn't believe it now, but I've had forty niggers under me, doing what I told them to". Replying to the boy’s question: "Did you ever shoot a nigger?" Bains answers: "I never had any call to shoot. Of course I carried a gun. But you didn’t need to treat them bad, that just made them stupid. Why, I loved some of those dammed niggers." The cinematic version of The Basement Room short story, The Fallen Idol (1948), directed by Carol Reed
, replaced novelist Greene’s niggers usage with natives.
s were called nigger toes, et cetera. As racism became unacceptable in mainstream culture, the tobacco brand became “Bigger Hare” and the canned goods brand became “Negro Head”. The Chinese Nanhai De Xing Leather Shoes Habiliment Co., Ltd.'s online store describes the color of a model of man’s leather boots as “nigger-brown”.
(1974) used nigger to ridicule US racism. In Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), the sequence titled “Danger Seekers” features a stuntman
effecting the dangerous stunt of shouting "Niggers!" at a group of black people, then fleeing when they chased him.
The movie Full Metal Jacket (1987) depicts black and white U.S. Marines
enduring boot camp
and later fighting together in Vietnam
. "Nigger" is used by soldiers of both races in jokes and as expressions of bravado ("put a nigger behind the trigger"), with racial differences among the men seen as secondary to their shared exposure to the dangers of combat
. As noted by Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey
), "There is no racial bigotry here. We do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops or greasers, because here you are all equally worthless."
novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
has long been the subject of controversy for its racial content, including its use of the word "nigger" as applied to the escaped slave character Jim. Huckleberry Finn was the fifth most challenged book during the 1990s, according to the American Library Association
. In 2011, a new edition of the book published by NewSouth Books
replaced the word "nigger" throughout the book with the word "slave" and also removed the word "injun". The change was spearheaded by Twain scholar Alan Gribben
in the hope of "countering the 'pre-emptive censorship'" that results from the book's being removed from school curricula over language concerns. The changes sparked outrage from critics and scholars.
after referring to "niggers" in the lyrics of the Guns N' Roses
song, “One in a Million”, Axl Rose
stated "I was pissed off about some black people that were trying to rob me. I wanted to insult those particular black people. I didn't want to support racism."
The country music
artist David Allan Coe
used the racial terms "redneck
", "white trash
", and "nigger" in the songs “If That Ain’t Country, I’ll Kiss Your Ass” and “Nigger Fucker”. In the 1960s, record producer J. D. "Jay" Miller published pro-racial segregation music with the “Reb Rebel” label featuring racist songs by Johnny Rebel
and others, demeaning black Americans and the Black Civil Rights movement.
Contemporarily, rap
groups such as N.W.A.
(Niggaz with Attitudes), re-popularized the usage in their songs.
, comedians Chevy Chase
and Richard Pryor
say nigger and honky
to each other in a word-association interview. Comedians such as Pryor, Redd Foxx
, Eddie Murphy
, Chris Rock
, and Lenny Bruce
used nigger in their comedy.
In the multi-part historical drama, the mini-series "Roots
" the word was used in historical context on multiple occasions.
The word was used for laughs as late as the 1970s in sitcoms that used race as a basis for their humor, but it was used quite sparingly, and only by Black characters. It was used in at least two episodes of Sanford & Son, and those episodes would later be censored
to remove the offending line(s) in syndication ("Here Comes The Bride, There Goes The Bride" and "Fred Sanford, Legal Eagle"). DVD releases of the show do contain the offending lines in question. The word was also said by George Jefferson
on All In The Family
in the episode "Lionel's Engagement", and it was said by Louise Jefferson
on The Jeffersons
in the episode "Like Father, Like Son".
In episode 20 of the Family Matters second season, the graffito nigger was written on Laura Winslow’s school locker, and found a note addressed to her that read: “If you want to learn Black History, Go back to Africa”.
Elsewhere, Dog the Bounty Hunter
used nigger in referring to his son’s girlfriend.
The Boondocks
uses the word nigger heavily, which has sparked controversy.
Dave Chappelle of Chappelle's Show
produced a comedy sketch entitled "The Niggar Family", a clever play on the homophone as applied to a white family with that surname.
(from 1927 until 1946) features the word and "nigger" as originally integral to the lyrics of “Ol' Man River
” and “Cotton Blossom”; although deleted from the cinema versions, it is included in the 1988 EMI recording of the original score. Musical theatre historian Miles Kreuger and conductor John McGlinn
propose that the word was not an insult, but a blunt illustration of how white people then perceived black people.
's Chinese-to-English translation software for writing the tags; it translated the Chinese “dark-brown” characters to “Nigger-brown”, and neither the Canadian supplier nor the store owner had noticed the incorrectly translated tag; subsequently, Kingsoft corrected its translation software. In Hong Kong English, the phrase nigger-brown was, decades earlier, routinely used in newspapers without racist
connotation.
was the name of a black dog that belonged to Wing Commander
Guy Gibson
, a Second World War, Royal Air Force
hero. The film The Dam Busters
(1955) features Gibson as a main character and his dog is depicted in several scenes. Both in the film and in the real events portrayed, the dog's name was also a radio codeword, used to report that Gibson's squadron had successfully destroyed one of its targets.
Some of the scenes in which the dog's name is uttered were later shown in the 1982 film Pink Floyd The Wall
.
In 1999, the British television network ITV
broadcast a censored
version with each of the twelve utterances of Nigger deleted. Replying to complaints against its censorship, ITV blamed the regional broadcaster, London Weekend Television
, which, in turn, blamed a junior employee as the unauthorised censor. In June 2001, when ITV re-broadcast the censored version of The Dam Busters, the Index on Censorship
criticised it as “unnecessary and ridiculous” censorship breaking the continuity of the film and the story. Versions of the film edited for US television have the dog's name altered to "Trigger".
The name has caused some controversy with a new remake of The Dam Busters, produced by Peter Jackson
. A 2009 newspaper article suggests that the name will be changed to "Nigsy" in the new film.
", and "Niggertown Marsh
". In 1967, the United States Board on Geographic Names
changed the word nigger to Negro in 143 place names. First changed to "Negrohead Mountain", a peak above Santa Monica
, California was renamed on (February 2010) to Ballard Mountain in honor of John Ballard, a black pioneer who settled the area in the 19th Century. "Nigger Head Mountain", at Burnet
, Texas, was so named because the forest atop it resembled a black man's hair. In 1966, the US First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson
, denounced the racist name, asking the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and the U.S. Forest Service
to rename it, becoming "Colored Mountain" in 1968; and in West Texas
, "Dead Nigger Creek" was renamed "Dead Negro Draw". "Nigger Nate Grade", near Temecula
, California, named for Nate Harrison, an ex-slave and settler, was renamed "Nathan Harrison Grade Road" in 1955, at the request of the NAACP
.
In northwestern North America, particularly in Canada and the US, there are places which feature many uses of the word nigger. At Penticton, British Columbia
, Canada, "Niggertoe Mountain" was renamed Mount Nkwala
. The place-name derived from a 1908 Christmas story about three black men who died in a blizzard; the next day, the bodies of two were found at the foot of the mountain. A point on the Lower Mississippi River
, in West Baton Rouge Parish
, named "Free Nigger Point" until the late twentieth century, first was renamed "Free Negro Point", but currently is named "Wilkinson Point". "Nigger Head Rock", protruding from a cliff above Highway 421, north of Pennington Gap
, Virginia, was renamed "Great Stone Face" in the 1970s.
the N-word became mainstream American English usage during the racially contentious murder trial
of ex-footballer O. J. Simpson
in 1995.
Key prosecution witness Detective Mark Fuhrman
, of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) – who denied using racist language on duty – impeached himself with his prolific use of nigger in tape recordings about his police work. The recordings, by screenplay writer Laura McKinney, were from a 1985 research session wherein the detective assisted her with a screenplay about LAPD policewomen. Fuhrman excused his use of the word saying he used nigger in the context of his "bad cop
" persona. Linguistically, the popular press reporting and discussing Fuhrman’s testimony substituted the N-word in place of nigger.
s of nigger; sellers of niger seed (used as bird feed), sometimes use the name Nyjer seed. The classical Latin pronunciation
/ˈniɡeɾ/ sounds like the English /ˈnɪɡər/, occurring in biologic and anatomic names, such as Hyoscamus niger (black henbane), and even for animals that are not in fact black, such as Sciurus niger (fox squirrel).
Nigra is the Latin feminine form of niger (black), used in biologic and anatomic names such as substantia nigra
(black substance).
The word niggardly (miserly) is etymologically unrelated to nigger, derived from the Old Norse
word nig (stingy) and the Middle English
word nigon. In the US, this word has been misheard or misread to mean nigger, therefore being taken as offensive. In January 1999, David Howard, a white Washington, D.C. city employee, was compelled to resign after using niggardly — in a financial context — while speaking with black colleagues, who took umbrage. After reviewing the misunderstanding, Mayor Anthony Williams
offered to reinstate Mr Howard, who refused reinstatement for another job elsewhere in the mayor's government.
The portmanteau word wigger
(white + nigger) denotes an adolescent white boy emulating "street black behavior", hoping acceptance to the hip hop
, thug, and gangsta
sub-cultures.
.
Among the black community, the slur nigger is almost always rendered as nigga
, a pronunciation emphasizing the unique intra-racial dialect of black people. A self-referential pronoun
in African American Vernacular English
usage popularized by the rap
and hip-hop music cultures. In these situations, it is used as in-group lexicon and speech, wherein it is not necessarily derogatory.
Acceptance of intra-group usage of the word "nigga" is still debated, although it has established a foothold amongst younger generations. The NAACP advocates against the usage of both "nigga" and "nigger". Mixed-race usage of "nigga" is still considered taboo, particularly if the speaker is white. However, trends indicate that usage of the term in intragroup settings is increasing even amongst white youth due to the popularity of rap and hip hop culture.
According to Arthur K. Spears (Diverse Issues in Higher Education, 2006)
While Kevin Cato observes:
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
in the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, most notable for its usage in a pejorative
Pejorative
Pejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...
context to refer to black people
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
(generally people of Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa as a geographical term refers to the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara. A political definition of Sub-Saharan Africa, instead, covers all African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara...
n descent), and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur. The word originated as a term used in a neutral context to refer to black people, as a variation of the Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
/Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
noun negro
Negro
The word Negro is used in the English-speaking world to refer to a person of black ancestry or appearance, whether of African descent or not...
, a descendant of the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
adjective niger, meaning the color "black
Black
Black is the color of objects that do not emit or reflect light in any part of the visible spectrum; they absorb all such frequencies of light...
".
Etymology and history
The variants neger and negar, derive from the Spanish and Portuguese word (black), and from the now-pejorative French nègre (nigger). Etymologically, negro, noir, nègre, and nigger ultimately derive from nigrum, the stem of the LatinLatin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
(black) ' onMouseout='HidePop("7566")' href="/topics/Grammatical_case">grammatical case
Grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form that indicates its grammatical function in a phrase, clause, or sentence. For example, a pronoun may play the role of subject , of direct object , or of possessor...
, grammatical gender
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
, and grammatical number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
besides nominative
Nominative case
The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...
masculine singular, is nigr-, the r is trilled
Alveolar trill
The alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. It is commonly called the rolled R, rolling R, or trilled R...
).
In the Colonial America
Colonial America
The colonial history of the United States covers the history from the start of European settlement and especially the history of the thirteen colonies of Britain until they declared independence in 1776. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain and the Netherlands launched major...
of 1619, John Rolfe
John Rolfe
John Rolfe was one of the early English settlers of North America. He is credited with the first successful cultivation of tobacco as an export crop in the Colony of Virginia and is known as the husband of Pocahontas, daughter of the chief of the Powhatan Confederacy.In 1961, the Jamestown...
used negars in describing the African slaves
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
shipped to the Virginia colony. Later American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
spellings, neger and neggar, prevailed in a northern colony, New York under the Dutch
Dutch people
The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...
, and in metropolitan Philadelphia’s Moravia
Moravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
n and Pennsylvania Dutch
Pennsylvania Dutch
Pennsylvania Dutch refers to immigrants and their descendants from southwestern Germany and Switzerland who settled in Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries...
communities; the African Burial Ground in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
originally was known by the Dutch name "Begraafplaats van de Neger" (Cemetery of the Negro); an early US occurrence of neger in Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
, dates from 1625. An alternative word for African Americans was the English word, "Black", used by Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
in his Notes on the State of Virginia
Notes on the State of Virginia
Notes on the State of Virginia was a book written by Thomas Jefferson. He completed the first edition in 1781, and updated and enlarged the book in 1782 and 1783...
. Among Anglophones, the word nigger was not always considered derogatory, because it then denoted “black-skinned”, a common Anglophone usage. Nineteenth-century English (language) literature features usages of nigger without racist connotation, e.g. the Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'
The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'
The Nigger of the 'Narcissus': A Tale of the Sea is a novella by Joseph Conrad. Because of its quality compared to earlier works, some have described it as marking the start of Conrad's major period; others have placed it as the best work of his early period. John G...
(1897). Moreover, Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
and Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
created characters who used the word as contemporary usage. Twain, in the autobiographic book Life on the Mississippi
Life on the Mississippi
Life on the Mississippi is a memoir by Mark Twain, of his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War, and also a travel book, recounting his trip along the Mississippi many years after the War....
(1883), used the term within quotes, indicating reported usage, but used the term "negro" when speaking in his own narrative persona.
In the United Kingdom and the Anglophone world, nigger denoted the dark-skinned (non-white) African and Asian (i.e., from India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
or nearby) peoples colonized
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
into the British Empire, and "dark-skinned foreigners" — in general.
By the 1900s, nigger had become a pejorative word. In its stead, the term colored
Colored
Colored is a term once widely used in the United States to describe black people and Native Americans...
became the mainstream alternative to negro and its derived terms. Abolitionists
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, posted warnings to the Colored People of Boston and vicinity. Writing in 1904, journalist Clifton Johnson documented the "opprobrious" character of the word nigger, emphasizing that it was chosen in the South precisely because it was more offensive than "colored." Established as mainstream American English usage, the word colored features in the organizational title of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
, reflecting the members’ racial identity
Identity politics
Identity politics are political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of self-identified social interest groups and ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through race, class, religion, sexual orientation or traditional dominance...
preference at the 1909 foundation. In the Southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
, the local American English dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
changes the pronunciation of negro to nigra. Linguistically, in developing American English, in the early editions of A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806), lexicographer
Lexicography
Lexicography is divided into two related disciplines:*Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries....
Noah Webster
Noah Webster
Noah Webster was an American educator, lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author...
suggested the neger new spelling
Spelling reform
Many languages have undergone spelling reform, where a deliberate, often officially sanctioned or mandated, change to spelling takes place. Proposals for such reform are also common....
in place of negro.
By the late 1960s, the social progress achieved by group in the United States such as the Black Civil Rights Movement (1955–68), had legitimized the racial identity
Identity politics
Identity politics are political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of self-identified social interest groups and ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through race, class, religion, sexual orientation or traditional dominance...
word black as mainstream American English usage to denote black-skinned Americans of African ancestry. In the 90's, "Black" was later displaced in favor of the compound blanket term African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
. Moreover, as a compound word, African American resembles the vogue word Afro-American, an early-1970s popular usage. Currently, some black Americans continue to use the word nigger, often spelled as nigga
Nigga
Nigga is a term used in African American Vernacular English that began as an eye dialect form of the word nigger .- Use in language :In practice, its use and meaning are...
and niggah, without irony, to either neutral effect or as a sign of solidarity.
British
In the United Kingdom and the Anglophone world, nigger denoted the dark-skinned (non-white) African and Asian (i.e., from IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
or nearby) peoples colonized
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
into the British Empire, and "dark-skinned foreigners" — in general.
In A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926), H. W. Fowler states that applying the word nigger to "others than full or partial negroes" is "felt as an insult by the person described, & betrays in the speaker, if not deliberate insolence, at least a very arrogant inhumanity"; but the second edition (1965) states: "N. has been described as 'the term that carries with it all the obloquy and contempt and rejection which whites have inflicted on blacks.' ".
Victorian writer
Victorian literature
Victorian literature is the literature produced during the reign of Queen Victoria . It forms a link and transition between the writers of the romantic period and the very different literature of the 20th century....
Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
used it in 'How the Leopard Got His Spots' and 'A Counting-Out Song' to illustrate the usage of the day. Likewise, P. G. Wodehouse
P. G. Wodehouse
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...
used the phrase “Nigger minstrels” in Thank You, Jeeves
Thank You, Jeeves
Thank You, Jeeves is a Jeeves novel by P.G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on March 16, 1934 by Herbert Jenkins, London, and in the United States on April 23, 1934 by Little, Brown and Company, New York....
(1934), the first Jeeves–Bertie novel, in admiration of their artistry and musical tradition.
As recently as the 1950s, it may have been acceptable British usage to say niggers when referring to black people, notable in mainstream usages such as Nigger Boy–brand candy cigarettes, and the color nigger brown or simply nigger (dark brown);
however, by the 1970s the term was generally recognized as racist, offensive and potentially illegal along with the variants "nig-nog" and "golliwog". As recently as 2007, the term nigger brown reappeared — in the model label of a Chinese-made sofa, presumably regional Chinese usage of an out-dated form of English. Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
's book Ten Little Niggers
And Then There Were None
And Then There Were None is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939 under the title Ten Little Niggers which was changed by Dodd, Mead and Company in January 1940 because of the presence of a racial...
was first published in London in 1939 and continued to appear under that title until the early 1980s, when it became And Then There Were None.
North American
Cultural: Addressing the use of nigger by black people, Cornel WestCornel West
Cornel Ronald West is an American philosopher, author, critic, actor, civil rights activist and prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America....
said, “There’s a certain rhythmic seduction to the word. If you speak in a sentence, and you have to say cat, companion, or friend, as opposed to nigger, then the rhythmic presentation is off. That rhythmic language is a form of historical memory for black people... When Richard Pryor
Richard Pryor
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor was an American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, writer and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities, and profanity, as well as racial epithets...
came back from Africa, and decided to stop using the word onstage, he would sometimes start to slip up, because he was so used to speaking that way. It was the right word at the moment to keep the rhythm together in his sentence making.” Contemporarily, the implied racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
of the word nigger has rendered its usages social taboo
Taboo
A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...
. In the US, magazines and newspapers often do not use it, instead printing “family-friendly” censored
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
versions, usually “n*gg*r”, “n**ger”, “n——”, and “the N-word”; however, historians and social activists, such as Dick Gregory
Dick Gregory
Richard Claxton "Dick" Gregory is an American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur....
, criticize the euphemisms and their usage as intellectually dishonest, because using the euphemism “the N-word” instead of nigger robs younger generations of Americans of the full history of Black people in America.
Political: Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
Governor Earl Long
Earl Long
Earl Kemp Long was an American politician and the 45th Governor of Louisiana for three non-consecutive terms. Long termed himself the "last of the red hot poppas" of politics, referring to his stump-speaking skills...
used nigger in advocating full voting rights for Black Americans; in that time, like colored and negro, it was mainstream usage in the American South. In 1948, the Washington Post newspaper’s coverage of the presidential
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
campaign of the segregationist
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
politician Strom Thurmond
Strom Thurmond
James Strom Thurmond was an American politician who served as a United States Senator. He also ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1948 as the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes...
, employed the periphrasis
Periphrasis
In linguistics, periphrasis is a device by which a grammatical category or grammatical relationship is expressed by a free morpheme , instead of being shown by inflection or derivation...
“the less-refined word for black people”. In explaining his refusal to be conscripted
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
to fight the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
(1965–75), professional boxer Muhammed Ali said, “No Vietcong ever called me nigger”; later, his modified answer was the title No Vietnamese Ever Called Me Nigger (1968) of a documentary about the front-line lot of the US Army Black soldier in combat in Vietnam. An Ali biographer reports that, when interviewed by Robert Lipsyte
Robert Lipsyte
Robert Lipsyte is an American sports journalist and author. Lipsyte is a member of the Board of Contributors for USA Todays Forum Page, part of the newspaper’s Opinion section.-Personal background:...
in 1966, the boxer actually said, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong”. The word can be invoked politically for effect. When Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick
Kwame Kilpatrick
Kwame Malik Kilpatrick is a former mayor of Detroit, Michigan. Kilpatrick's mayorship was plagued by numerous scandals and rampant accusations of corruption, with the mayor eventually resigning after being charged with ten felony counts, including perjury and obstruction of justice...
came under intense scrutiny for his personal conduct in 2008, he deviated from an address to city council, saying, "In the past 30 days, I've been called a nigger more than any time in my entire life." Opponents accused him of "playing the Race Card
Race card
Playing the race card is an idiomatic phrase that refers to exploitation of either racist or anti-racist attitudes to gain a personal advantage, typically by falsely accusing others of racism against oneself.-Usage:...
" to save his political life.
On February 28, 2007, the New York City Council
New York City Council
The New York City Council is the lawmaking body of the City of New York. It has 51 members from 51 council districts throughout the five boroughs. The Council serves as a check against the mayor in a "strong" mayor-council government model. The council monitors performance of city agencies and...
symbolically banned, with a formal resolution, the use of the word nigger; however, there is no penalty for using it. The New York City resolution also requests excluding from Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
consideration every song whose lyrics contain the word nigger, however Ron Roecker, vice president of communication for the Recording Academy doubts that it will have any effect on actual nominations.
Sport: In the first half of the twentieth century, before Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
was racially integrated, dark-skinned and dark-complexion players were nicknamed Nig; examples are: Johnny Beazley
Johnny Beazley
John Andrew Beazley was a right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball who played for the St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Braves...
(1941–49), Joe Berry
Joe Berry (second baseman)
Joseph Howard Berry, Jr. was a professional baseball second baseman and pinch runner, and an All-American football halfback....
(1921–22), Bobby Bragan
Bobby Bragan
Robert Randall Bragan was a shortstop, catcher, manager, and coach in American Major League Baseball. He also was an influential executive in minor league baseball...
(1940–48), Nig Clarke
Nig Clarke
Jay Justin "Nig" Clarke was a professional baseball player in Major League Baseball. He is best known for, in 1902 playing for Texas League's Corsicana Oil Citys, going 8 for 8 with 8 home runs...
(1905–20), Nig Cuppy
Nig Cuppy
George Joseph "Nig" Cuppy was an American baseball pitcher during the 1890s. He spent nine years of his 10-year major league career as the number two starter behind Cy Young....
(1892–1901), Nig Fuller
Nig Fuller
Charles F. Fuller , is a former professional baseball player who played catcher for the Brooklyn Superbas in three games during the 1902 baseball season.-External links:...
(1902), Johnny Grabowski
Johnny Grabowski
John Patrick Grabowski , nicknamed "Nig", was a Major League Baseball catcher who played 7 seasons for the Chicago White Sox , New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers .Born in Ware, Massachusetts to a family of Polish descent, Grabowski played 296 major league games—282 of them as a catcher...
(1923–31), Nig Lipscomb (1937), Charlie Niebergall (1921–24), Nig Perrine (1907), and Frank Smith (1904–15). The 1930s movie The Bowery
The Bowery (1933 film)
The Bowery is a 1933 historical film about the Lower East Side of Manhattan at the turn of the century. The movie was directed by Raoul Walsh and features Wallace Beery as saloon owner Chuck Connors, George Raft as Steve Brodie, the first man to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge and live, Jackie Cooper...
with George Raft
George Raft
George Raft was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s...
and Wallace Beery
Wallace Beery
Wallace Fitzgerald Beery was an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Bill in Min and Bill opposite Marie Dressler, as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, as Pancho Villa in Viva Villa!, and his titular role in The Champ, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
includes a NYC sports-bar named “Nigger Joe’s”.
Denotational extension
The denotations of nigger also comprehend non-white and racially disadvantaged people; the US politician Ron DellumsRon Dellums
Ronald Vernie "Ron" Dellums served as Oakland's forty-fifth mayor. From 1971 to 1998, he was elected to thirteen terms as a Member of the U.S...
said, “... it's time for somebody to lead all of America’s niggers”. Jerry Farber's 1967 protest, The Student as Nigger
The Student as Nigger
The Student as Nigger is the title of an essay and subsequent book by American educator Jerry Farber.The essay first appeared in the Los Angeles Free Press in 1967 and is often cited as one of the first underground publications to receive widespread recognition...
invoked the word as a metaphor for the victims of an authoritarian society. In 1969, in the UK, in the course of being interviewed by a Nova
Nova (UK magazine)
Nova, published from March 1965 to October 1975, was a British magazine. It has been described as "a politically radical, beautifully designed, intellectual women's magazine"....
magazine reporter, artist Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
said, “... woman is the nigger of the world”; three years later, her husband, John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
, published the song “Woman is the Nigger of the World
Woman Is the Nigger of the World
"Woman Is the Nigger of the World" is a song written by John Lennon & Yoko Ono and recorded by John Lennon. It was released as a single on Apple Records in the United States and in New Zealand and Japan, but was withdrawn from release in Britain. It peaked at #57 on the Billboard Hot 100, making...
” (1972) — about the virtually universal exploitation of woman — proved socially and politically controversial to US sensibilities. In 1978, singer Patti Smith
Patti Smith
Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....
used the word in “Rock N Roll Nigger
Rock N Roll Nigger
"Rock N Roll Nigger" is a rock song written by Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye, and released on the Patti Smith Group's 1978 album Easter. The song has since been covered by several artists, and was included on the soundtrack of the 1994 film Natural Born Killers.- Liner notes :The following is quoted...
”. In 1979, singer Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
used nigger in “Oliver's Army
Oliver's Army
"Oliver's Army" is a song written by Elvis Costello, originally performed by Elvis Costello and the Attractions and appearing on the album Armed Forces in 1979. It remains his most successful single, spending four weeks at Nº2 in the UK singles chart....
”, a state-of-the-world-today song which referred to people being shot dead trying to circumvent 'Checkpoint Charlie' at the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
to escape into West Germany. Later, the producers of the British talent show Stars in Their Eyes
Stars In Their Eyes
Stars in Their Eyes is a British television talent show that ran on Saturdays nights from 21 July 1990 until 23 December 2006 in which contestants impersonate showbiz stars...
forced a contestant to censor
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
one of its lines, changing “... all it takes is one itchy trigger — One more widow, one less white nigger” to the euphemistic
Euphemism
A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...
“... one less white figure”. Moreover, in his autobiography, White Niggers of America: The Precocious Autobiography of a Quebec “Terrorist” (1968), Pierre Vallières
Pierre Vallières
Pierre Vallières , was a Québécois journalist, and writer. He was considered an intellectual leader of the Front de libération du Québec ....
, a Front de libération du Québec
Front de libération du Québec
The Front de libération du Québec was a left-wing Quebecois nationalist and Marxist-Leninist paramilitary group in Quebec, Canada. It was active between 1963 and 1970, and was regarded as a terrorist organization for its violent methods of action...
leader refers to the oppression of the Québécois people in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
.
In his memoir, All Souls, Michael Patrick MacDonald
Michael Patrick MacDonald
Michael Patrick MacDonald is an Irish-American activist against crime and violence and author of his memoir, All Souls: A Family Story From Southie. Since being involved in activism, he helped to start Boston's gun-buyback program, founded the South Boston Vigil Group, which works with survivor...
describes how many white residents of the Old Colony housing project in South Boston used this meaning to degrade the people considered to be of lower status, whether white or black.
Other languages
The pejorative use of the word nigger is typical for the English language and more specifically for the North American culture. Many other languages have words that sound the same as nigger (are homophonic), but do not necessarily have the same meaning, while on the other hand having ethnic slurs dissimilar to 'nigger' but carrying the same meaning. This can cause misunderstandings between native and non-native English speakers, when using 'politically correctPolitical correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...
' words for 'black people'. Where there is a better understanding of the meaning of the English word nigger, speakers of other languages tend to be more careful with the homophonic words in their own language, or may sometimes adopt the word nigger to have a pejorative word for a 'black person'.
Some examples of how other languages refer to a black person in a neutral and in a pejorative way:
- DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
: neger is neutral, zwartje (little black one) can be amicably or offensively used, nikker is always pejorative is neutral, is a racist colonial usage. - HungarianHungarian languageHungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
: is neutral, feka (little black one) is pejorative - ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
: is neutral, negro is a rather offensive word - LatvianLatvian languageLatvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
: nēģeris is neutral, nigger is adopted as racist - PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
: negro is neutral, preto is racist - Brazilian PortugueseBrazilian PortugueseBrazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....
: negro and preto are neutral, nevertheless preto can be offensively used, is sometimes regarded as 'politically incorrect' and almost never proudly used by afro-Brazilians, crioulo and macaco are always extremely pejorative - RomanianRomanian languageRomanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
: negru is neutral, cioroi (little crow) is pejorative - RussianRussian languageRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: negr (“негр”) is neutral, chyornyi (“чёрный”, black) is a moderately derogatory slur, usually applied against Middle EastMiddle EastThe Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
ern and people of the Caucasus, nigger (“ниггер”) is adopted as racist, chernozhopyi (“черножопый”, black-assed) and chernomazyi (“черномазый”, black-luted) are the harshest generic racist slur for non-white people - YiddishYiddish languageYiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
: neger is neutral, shvartzer (black man, black woman) is racist
Literary
Historically, nigger is controversial in literature due to its usage as both a racist insult and a common noun. The white photographer and writer, Carl Van VechtenCarl van Vechten
Carl Van Vechten was an American writer and photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein.-Biography:...
, a supporter of the Harlem Renaissance
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...
(1920s–30s), provoked controversy in the black community with the title of his novel Nigger Heaven
Nigger Heaven
Nigger Heaven is a 1926 novel written by Carl Van Vechten, set during the Harlem Renaissance in the United States in the 1920s. The book and its title have been controversial since its publication....
(1926), wherein the usage increased sales; of the controversy, Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
wrote:
In the US, the recurrent (reading curricula
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
) controversy about the vocabulary of the novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in England in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written in the vernacular, characterized by...
(1885), by Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
— American literature (usually) taught in US schools — about the slave South, risks censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
because of 215 (counted) occurrences of the word nigger, most refer to Jim, Huckleberry's escaped-slave raft-mate. Twain's advocates note that the novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
is composed in then-contemporary vernacular usage, not racist stereotype, because Jim, the black man, is a sympathetic character in the nineteenth-century Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The book was re-published in 2010 with edits removing "the 'N' word" as reported in Time online. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been the subject of controversy in Arizona, where a parent group's attempt to have it removed from a required reading list was struck down by the court.
Moreover, unlike the literary escaped slave Jim, antebellum slaves used the artifice of self-deprecation (known as "Uncle Tom
Uncle Tom
Uncle Tom is a derogatory term for a person who perceives themselves to be of low status, and is excessively subservient to perceived authority figures; particularly a black person who behaves in a subservient manner to white people....
s"), in pandering to societal racist assumptions about the black man's low intelligence, by advantageously using the word nigger to escape the violence inherent to slavery. Implicit to "Uncle Tomming" was the unspoken reminder to white folk that a presumably inferior and sub-human person could not, reasonably, be held responsible for poorly realized work, a kitchen fire, or any such catastrophic offense. The artificial self-deprecation deflected responsibility, in hope of escaping the violent wraths of overseer and master. Using nigger as a self-referential identity
Identity politics
Identity politics are political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of self-identified social interest groups and ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through race, class, religion, sexual orientation or traditional dominance...
term also was a way of avoiding white suspicion, of encountering an intelligent slave, and so put whites at their ease. In context, a slave who referred to himself, or another black man, as a nigger presumed the master's perceiving him as a slave who has accepted his societally sub-ordinate role as private property, thus, not (potentially) subversive
Subversion (politics)
Subversion refers to an attempt to transform the established social order, its structures of power, authority, and hierarchy; examples of such structures include the State. In this context, a "subversive" is sometimes called a "traitor" with respect to the government in-power. A subversive is...
of the authority
Authority
The word Authority is derived mainly from the Latin word auctoritas, meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command. In English, the word 'authority' can be used to mean power given by the state or by academic knowledge of an area .-Authority in Philosophy:In...
of the master's white supremacy
White supremacy
White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.White supremacy, as with racial...
.
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
entertainment, the Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
operetta The Mikado
The Mikado
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...
(1885) twice uses the word nigger. In the song As some day it may happen, the executioner, Ko-ko, sings of executing the "nigger serenader and the others of his race", personified by black-faced
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
singers singing minstrel songs
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
. In the song A more humane Mikado, the Mikado sings of the punishment for older women who dye their hair or wear corsets, to be "Blacked like a nigger/With permanent walnut juice." Both lyrics are usually changed for contemporary performances. In addition, Ten Little Niggers (1939) was the original British title of Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...
's novel And Then There Were None
And Then There Were None
And Then There Were None is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939 under the title Ten Little Niggers which was changed by Dodd, Mead and Company in January 1940 because of the presence of a racial...
, which has also been known by the alternate title Ten Little Indians.
The Reverend W. V. Awdry's The Railway Series
The Railway Series
The Railway Series is a set of story books about a railway system located on the fictional Island of Sodor. There are 42 books in the series, the first being published in 1945. Twenty-six were written by the Rev. W. Awdry, up to 1972. A further 16 were written by his son, Christopher Awdry; 14...
(1945–72) story Henry's Sneeze, originally described soot-covered boys with the phrase "as black as niggers". In 1972, after complaints, the description was edited to "as black as soot", in the subsequent editions. Rev. Awdry is known for Thomas the Tank Engine
Thomas the Tank Engine
Thomas the Tank Engine is a fictional steam locomotive in The Railway Series books by the Reverend Wilbert Awdry and his son, Christopher. He became the most popular character in the series, and the accompanying television spin-off series, Thomas and Friends.Thomas is a tank engine, painted blue...
(1946).
How the Leopard Got His Spots, in Just So Stories
Just So Stories
The Just So Stories for Little Children were written by British author Rudyard Kipling. They are highly fantasised origin stories and are among Kipling's best known works.-Description:...
(1902), by Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
, tells of an Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
n man and a leopard
Leopard
The leopard , Panthera pardus, is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion, and jaguar. The leopard was once distributed across eastern and southern Asia and Africa, from Siberia to South Africa, but its...
, both originally sand-colored, deciding to camouflage themselves with painted spots, for hunting in tropical forest. The story originally included a scene wherein the leopard (now spotted) asks the Ethiopian man why he does not want spots. In contemporary editions of How the Leopard Got His Spots, the Ethiopian's original reply: "Oh, plain black's best for a nigger", has been edited to, "Oh, plain black’s best for me." Again, Kipling uses the word in A Counting-Out Song (Land and Sea Tales for Scouts and Guides, 1923), the rhyme reads: "Eenie Meenie Mainee, Mo
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe
"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe", which can be spelled a number of ways, is a children's counting rhyme, used to select a person to be "it" for games and similar purposes such as counting out a child that has to be stood down from a group of children as part of a playground game...
! Catch a nigger by the toe!"
In short story, The Basement Room (1935), by Graham Greene
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene, OM, CH was an English author, playwright and literary critic. His works explore the ambivalent moral and political issues of the modern world...
, the (sympathetic) servant character, Baines, tells the admiring boy, son of his employer, of his African British colony service, "You wouldn't believe it now, but I've had forty niggers under me, doing what I told them to". Replying to the boy’s question: "Did you ever shoot a nigger?" Bains answers: "I never had any call to shoot. Of course I carried a gun. But you didn’t need to treat them bad, that just made them stupid. Why, I loved some of those dammed niggers." The cinematic version of The Basement Room short story, The Fallen Idol (1948), directed by Carol Reed
Carol Reed
Sir Carol Reed was an English film director best known for Odd Man Out , The Fallen Idol , The Third Man and Oliver!...
, replaced novelist Greene’s niggers usage with natives.
Popular culture
In the US and the UK, the word nigger featured in branding and packaging consumer products, e.g. “Nigger Hair Tobacco” and “Niggerhead Oysters”, Brazil nutBrazil Nut
The Brazil nut is a South American tree in the family Lecythidaceae, and also the name of the tree's commercially harvested edible seed.- Order :...
s were called nigger toes, et cetera. As racism became unacceptable in mainstream culture, the tobacco brand became “Bigger Hare” and the canned goods brand became “Negro Head”. The Chinese Nanhai De Xing Leather Shoes Habiliment Co., Ltd.'s online store describes the color of a model of man’s leather boots as “nigger-brown”.
Cinema
The movie Blazing SaddlesBlazing Saddles
Blazing Saddles is a 1974 satirical Western comedy film directed by Mel Brooks. Starring Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder, the film was written by Brooks, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor, Norman Steinberg, and Al Uger, and was based on Bergman's story and draft. The movie was nominated for three...
(1974) used nigger to ridicule US racism. In Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), the sequence titled “Danger Seekers” features a stuntman
Stunt performer
A stuntman, or daredevil is someone who performs dangerous stunts, often as a career.These stunts are sometimes rigged so that they look dangerous while still having safety mechanisms, but often they are as dangerous as they appear to be...
effecting the dangerous stunt of shouting "Niggers!" at a group of black people, then fleeing when they chased him.
The movie Full Metal Jacket (1987) depicts black and white U.S. Marines
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
enduring boot camp
Recruit training
Recruit training, more commonly known as Basic Training and colloquially called Boot Camp, is the initial indoctrination and instruction given to new military personnel, enlisted and officer...
and later fighting together in Vietnam
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. "Nigger" is used by soldiers of both races in jokes and as expressions of bravado ("put a nigger behind the trigger"), with racial differences among the men seen as secondary to their shared exposure to the dangers of combat
Combat
Combat, or fighting, is a purposeful violent conflict meant to establish dominance over the opposition, or to terminate the opposition forever, or drive the opposition away from a location where it is not wanted or needed....
. As noted by Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey
R. Lee Ermey
Ronald Lee Ermey is a retired United States Marine Corps drill instructor and actor.Ermey has often played the roles of authority figures, such as his breakout performance as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket, Mayor Tilman in the Alan Parker film Mississippi Burning, Bill Bowerman in...
), "There is no racial bigotry here. We do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops or greasers, because here you are all equally worthless."
Literature
Mark Twain'sMark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in England in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written in the vernacular, characterized by...
has long been the subject of controversy for its racial content, including its use of the word "nigger" as applied to the escaped slave character Jim. Huckleberry Finn was the fifth most challenged book during the 1990s, according to the American Library Association
American Library Association
The American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....
. In 2011, a new edition of the book published by NewSouth Books
NewSouth Books
NewSouth Books is an independent publishing house founded in 2000 in Montgomery, Alabama, by editor H. Randall Williams and publisher Suzanne LaRosa. Williams was the founder of Black Belt Press, working there from 1986 to 1999, and LaRosa worked in magazine and book publishing in New York City,...
replaced the word "nigger" throughout the book with the word "slave" and also removed the word "injun". The change was spearheaded by Twain scholar Alan Gribben
Alan Gribben
Alan Gribben is a professor of English at Auburn University at Montgomery in Alabama and a noted Mark Twain scholar. He was Distinguished Research Professor from 1998 to 2001 and the Dr. Guinevera A. Nance Alumni Professor from 2006 to 2009...
in the hope of "countering the 'pre-emptive censorship'" that results from the book's being removed from school curricula over language concerns. The changes sparked outrage from critics and scholars.
Music
Responding to accusations of racismRacism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
after referring to "niggers" in the lyrics of the Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...
song, “One in a Million”, Axl Rose
Axl Rose
W. Axl Rose is an American singer-songwriter and musician. He is the lead vocalist and only remaining original member of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he enjoyed great success and recognition in the late 1980s and early 1990s, before disappearing from the public eye for several years...
stated "I was pissed off about some black people that were trying to rob me. I wanted to insult those particular black people. I didn't want to support racism."
The country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
artist David Allan Coe
David Allan Coe
David Allan Coe is an American outlaw country music singer who achieved popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. He has written and performed over 280 original songs throughout his career...
used the racial terms "redneck
Redneck
Redneck is a historically derogatory slang term used in reference to poor, uneducated white farmers, especially from the southern United States...
", "white trash
White trash
White trash is an American English pejorative term referring to poor white people in the United States, suggesting lower social class and degraded living standards...
", and "nigger" in the songs “If That Ain’t Country, I’ll Kiss Your Ass” and “Nigger Fucker”. In the 1960s, record producer J. D. "Jay" Miller published pro-racial segregation music with the “Reb Rebel” label featuring racist songs by Johnny Rebel
Johnny Rebel (singer)
Johnny Rebel is the pseudonym of Cajun country musician Clifford Joseph Trahan , also known as Pee Wee Trahan. Trahan has used this pseudonym most notably on racist recordings issued in the 1960s on J. D. "Jay" Miller's Reb Rebel label of Crowley, Louisiana...
and others, demeaning black Americans and the Black Civil Rights movement.
Contemporarily, rap
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
groups such as N.W.A.
N.W.A.
N.W.A was an American hip hop group from Compton, California, widely considered one of the seminal acts of the gangsta rap sub-genre....
(Niggaz with Attitudes), re-popularized the usage in their songs.
Television
In Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
, comedians Chevy Chase
Chevy Chase
Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase is an American comedian, writer, and television and film actor, born into a prominent entertainment industry family. Chase worked a plethora of odd jobs before moving into comedy acting with National Lampoon...
and Richard Pryor
Richard Pryor
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor was an American stand-up comedian, actor, social critic, writer and MC. Pryor was known for uncompromising examinations of racism and topical contemporary issues, which employed colorful vulgarities, and profanity, as well as racial epithets...
say nigger and honky
Honky
Honky is a racial slur for white people, predominantly heard in the United States...
to each other in a word-association interview. Comedians such as Pryor, Redd Foxx
Redd Foxx
John Elroy Sanford , better known by his stage name Redd Foxx, was an American comedian and actor, best known for his starring role on the sitcom Sanford and Son.-Early life:...
, Eddie Murphy
Eddie Murphy
Edward Regan "Eddie" Murphy is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, singer, director, and musician....
, Chris Rock
Chris Rock
Christopher Julius "Chris" Rock III is an American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer and director. He was voted in the US as the 5th greatest stand-up comedian of all time by Comedy Central...
, and Lenny Bruce
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
used nigger in their comedy.
In the multi-part historical drama, the mini-series "Roots
Roots (TV miniseries)
Roots is a 1977 American television miniseries based on Alex Haley's fictional novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family. Roots received 36 Emmy Award nominations, winning nine. It also won a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award. It received unprecedented Nielsen ratings with the finale still...
" the word was used in historical context on multiple occasions.
The word was used for laughs as late as the 1970s in sitcoms that used race as a basis for their humor, but it was used quite sparingly, and only by Black characters. It was used in at least two episodes of Sanford & Son, and those episodes would later be censored
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
to remove the offending line(s) in syndication ("Here Comes The Bride, There Goes The Bride" and "Fred Sanford, Legal Eagle"). DVD releases of the show do contain the offending lines in question. The word was also said by George Jefferson
George Jefferson
George Jefferson is a fictional character played by Sherman Hemsley in American television sitcoms All in the Family and its spin-off The Jeffersons...
on All In The Family
All in the Family
All in the Family is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, a new show, Archie Bunker's Place, picked up where All in the Family had ended...
in the episode "Lionel's Engagement", and it was said by Louise Jefferson
Louise Jefferson
Louise Jefferson was a supporting character, portrayed by Emmy Award-winning actress Isabel Sanford, who appeared first on the television series All in the Family. She later became one of the main characters in its spinoff series, The Jeffersons...
on The Jeffersons
The Jeffersons
The Jeffersons is an American sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from January 18, 1975, through June 25, 1985, lasting 11 seasons and a total of 253 episodes. The show was produced by the T.A.T. Communications Company from 1975–1982 and by Embassy Television from 1982-1985...
in the episode "Like Father, Like Son".
In episode 20 of the Family Matters second season, the graffito nigger was written on Laura Winslow’s school locker, and found a note addressed to her that read: “If you want to learn Black History, Go back to Africa”.
Elsewhere, Dog the Bounty Hunter
Dog the Bounty Hunter
Dog the Bounty Hunter is a reality television show on A&E which chronicles Duane "Dog" Chapman's adventures as a fugitive recovery agent, or bounty hunter...
used nigger in referring to his son’s girlfriend.
The Boondocks
The Boondocks (TV series)
The Boondocks is an American animated series created by Aaron McGruder on Cartoon Network's late night programing block, Adult Swim, based on McGruder's comic strip of the same name...
uses the word nigger heavily, which has sparked controversy.
Dave Chappelle of Chappelle's Show
Chappelle's Show
Chappelle's Show is an American sketch comedy television series created by comedian Dave Chappelle and Neal Brennan, with Chappelle hosting the show as well as starring in various skits. Chappelle, Brennan and Michele Armour were the show's executive producers. The series premiered on January 22,...
produced a comedy sketch entitled "The Niggar Family", a clever play on the homophone as applied to a white family with that surname.
Theatre
The musical Show BoatShow Boat
Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was originally produced in New York in 1927 and in London in 1928, and was based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. The plot chronicles the lives of those living and working...
(from 1927 until 1946) features the word and "nigger" as originally integral to the lyrics of “Ol' Man River
Ol' Man River
"Ol' Man River" is a song in the 1927 musical Show Boat that expresses the African American hardship and struggles of the time with the endless, uncaring flow of the Mississippi River; it is sung from the point-of-view of a dock worker on a showboat, and is the most famous song from the show...
” and “Cotton Blossom”; although deleted from the cinema versions, it is included in the 1988 EMI recording of the original score. Musical theatre historian Miles Kreuger and conductor John McGlinn
John McGlinn
John Alexander McGlinn III was an American conductor and musical theatre archivist. He was one of the principal proponents of authentic studio cast recordings of Broadway musicals, using original orchestrations and vocal arrangements.-Biography:John Alexander McGlinn III was born in Bryn Mawr,...
propose that the word was not an insult, but a blunt illustration of how white people then perceived black people.
"Nigger-brown" colored furniture
In April 2007, a dark brown leather sofa set, sold by Vanaik Furniture and Mattress Store in Toronto, Canada, was labelled as “Nigger-brown” color. Investigation determined that the Chinese manufacturer used an outdated version of KingsoftKingsoft
Kingsoft is a software company located in China. Its products include Kingsoft Office, PowerWord, Kingsoft Internet Security, Kingsoft free antivirus and the Kingsoft FastAIT Chinese-English-Japanese translation software....
's Chinese-to-English translation software for writing the tags; it translated the Chinese “dark-brown” characters to “Nigger-brown”, and neither the Canadian supplier nor the store owner had noticed the incorrectly translated tag; subsequently, Kingsoft corrected its translation software. In Hong Kong English, the phrase nigger-brown was, decades earlier, routinely used in newspapers without racist
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
connotation.
The Dam Busters film
NiggerNigger (dog)
Nigger was a male black labrador retriever belonging to Wing Commander Guy Gibson, and the mascot of 617 Squadron. Nigger died on 16 May 1943, the day before the famous "Dam Busters" raid, when he was hit by a car. He was buried at midnight as Gibson was leading the raid. "Nigger" was the codeword...
was the name of a black dog that belonged to Wing Commander
Wing Commander (rank)
Wing commander is a commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many other Commonwealth countries...
Guy Gibson
Guy Gibson
Wing Commander Guy Penrose Gibson VC, DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar, RAF , was the first CO of the Royal Air Force's 617 Squadron, which he led in the "Dam Busters" raid in 1943, resulting in the destruction of two large dams in the Ruhr area...
, a Second World War, Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
hero. The film The Dam Busters
The Dam Busters (film)
The Dam Busters is a 1955 British Second World War war film starring Michael Redgrave and Richard Todd and directed by Michael Anderson. The film recreates the true story of Operation Chastise when in 1943 the RAF's 617 Squadron attacked the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams in Germany with Wallis's...
(1955) features Gibson as a main character and his dog is depicted in several scenes. Both in the film and in the real events portrayed, the dog's name was also a radio codeword, used to report that Gibson's squadron had successfully destroyed one of its targets.
Some of the scenes in which the dog's name is uttered were later shown in the 1982 film Pink Floyd The Wall
Pink Floyd The Wall (film)
Pink Floyd—The Wall is a 1982 British live-action/animated musical film directed by Alan Parker based on the 1979 Pink Floyd album The Wall. The screenplay was written by Pink Floyd vocalist and bassist Roger Waters. The film is highly metaphorical and is rich in symbolic imagery and sound...
.
In 1999, the British television network ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
broadcast a censored
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
version with each of the twelve utterances of Nigger deleted. Replying to complaints against its censorship, ITV blamed the regional broadcaster, London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television was the name of the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties including south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Warwickshire, east Dorset and...
, which, in turn, blamed a junior employee as the unauthorised censor. In June 2001, when ITV re-broadcast the censored version of The Dam Busters, the Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship is a campaigning publishing organisation for freedom of expression, which produces an award-winning quarterly magazine of the same name from London. The present chief executive of Index on Censorship, since 2008, is the author, broadcaster and commentator John Kampfner, former...
criticised it as “unnecessary and ridiculous” censorship breaking the continuity of the film and the story. Versions of the film edited for US television have the dog's name altered to "Trigger".
The name has caused some controversy with a new remake of The Dam Busters, produced by Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson
Sir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , adapted from the novel by J. R. R...
. A 2009 newspaper article suggests that the name will be changed to "Nigsy" in the new film.
Derivations
- Nigger as "defect" (a hidden problem), derives from "nigger in the woodpileNigger in the woodpileA nigger in the woodpile is an English figure of speech formerly commonly used in the United States and elsewhere. It means "some fact of considerable importance that is not disclosed – something suspicious or wrong".-Origin:...
", a US slave-era phrase denoting escaped slaves hiding in train-transported woodpiles.
- In American EnglishAmerican EnglishAmerican English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....
: nigger lover initially applied to abolitionistsAbolitionismAbolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
, then to white folk sympathetic towards black Americans. Sand nigger, an ethnic slur against Arabs, and timber nigger and prairie nigger, ethnic slurs against Native AmericansIndigenous peoples of the AmericasThe indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
, are examples of the racist extension of nigger upon other non-white peoples.
- In several English-speaking countries, "NiggerheadNiggerheadIn several English-speaking countries, Niggerhead or nigger head is a former name for several things thought to resemble a black person's head....
" or "nigger head" was used as a name for all sorts of things, including commercial products, places, plants and animals, as well as a colloquial technical term in industry, mining and seafaring.
- In the Victorian eraVictorian eraThe Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
, the 1840s Morning ChronicleMorning ChronicleThe Morning Chronicle was a newspaper founded in 1769 in London, England, and published under various owners until 1862. It was most notable for having been the first employer of Charles Dickens, and for publishing the articles by Henry Mayhew which were collected and published in book format in...
newspaper report series London Labour and the London PoorLondon Labour and the London PoorLondon Labour and the London Poor is a work of Victorian journalism by Henry Mayhew. In the 1840s he observed, documented and described the state of working people in London for a series of articles in a newspaper, the Morning Chronicle, that were later compiled into book form.-Overview:The...
, by Henry MayhewHenry MayhewHenry Mayhew was an English social researcher, journalist, playwright and advocate of reform. He was one of the two founders of the satirical and humorous magazine Punch, and the magazine's joint-editor, with Mark Lemon, in its early days...
, records the usages of both nigger and its false cognateFalse cognateFalse cognates are pairs of words in the same or different languages that are similar in form and meaning but have different roots. That is, they appear to be, or are sometimes considered, cognates, when in fact they are not....
niggard denoting a false bottom for a grate.
- Flora and fauna nomenclatures include the word nigger. The Arizonan nigger-head cactus, Echinocactus polycephalusEchinocactus polycephalusEchinocactus polycephalus is a cactus that occurs in the Mojave Desert region of Arizona, California, and Nevada. It also occurs in the Sonoran Desert region of southern California and northern Sonora, Mexico....
is a round, cabbage-sized plant covered with large, crooked thorns. The colloquial names for echinaceaEchinaceaEchinacea is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the daisy family, Asteraceae. The nine species it contains are commonly called purple coneflowers. They are endemic to eastern and central North America, where they are found growing in moist to dry prairies and open wooded areas. They have...
(coneflower) are "Kansas niggerhead" and "Wild niggerhead". In OceaniaOceaniaOceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
, the "niggerhead termite" (NasutitermesNasutitermesNasutitermes is a genus of termites. It consists of the following species:*Nasutitermes bikpelanus*Nasutitermes corniger*Nasutitermes ephratae*Nasutitermes exitiosus*Nasutitermes magnus*Nasutitermes matangensiformis...
graveolus) is a native of Australia.
- During the Spanish–American War US Army General John J. PershingJohn J. PershingJohn Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing, GCB , was a general officer in the United States Army who led the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I...
's original nickname, Nigger Jack, given to him as an instructor at West Point because of his service with "Buffalo SoldierBuffalo SoldierBuffalo Soldiers originally were members of the U.S. 10th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army, formed on September 21, 1866 at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas....
" units, was euphemizedEuphemismA euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...
to Black Jack by reporters.
- In 1960, a stand at the stadium in Toowoomba, Australia, was named the "E. S. 'Nigger' Brown Stand" honoring 1920s rugby leagueRugby leagueRugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
player Edward Stanley Brown, so nicknamed since early life because of his pale white skin; so known all his life, his tombstone is engraved Nigger. Stephen HaganStephen HaganStephen Hagan is an Australian author, activist and campaigner against racism. He is also a newspaper editor, documentary maker, university lecturer and former diplomat....
, a lecturerLecturerLecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, lecturer is a position at a university or similar institution, often held by academics in their early career stages, who lead research groups and supervise research students, as well as teach...
at the Kumbari/Ngurpai Lag Higher Education Center of the University of Southern QueenslandUniversity of Southern QueenslandThe University of Southern Queensland is based in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. The institution was established in 1967 as the Queensland Institute of Technology...
sued the Toowoomba councilCity of ToowoombaThe City of Toowoomba was a Local Government Area located in the Darling Downs region of Queensland, Australia, encompassing the centre and inner suburbs of the regional city of Toowoomba...
over the use of nigger in the stand's name; the district and state courts dismissed his lawsuit. He appealed to the High Court of AustraliaHigh Court of AustraliaThe High Court of Australia is the supreme court in the Australian court hierarchy and the final court of appeal in Australia. It has both original and appellate jurisdiction, has the power of judicial review over laws passed by the Parliament of Australia and the parliaments of the States, and...
, who ruled the naming matter beyond federal jurisdiction. At first some local Aborigines did not share Mr Hagan's opposition to nigger. Hagan appealed to the United Nations, winning a committee recommendation to the Australian federal government, that it force the Queensland state government to remove the word nigger from the "E. S. 'Nigger' Brown Stand" name. The Australian federal government followed the High Court's jurisdictionJurisdictionJurisdiction is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility...
ruling. In September 2008, the stand was demolished. The Queensland Sports Minister, Judy SpenceJudy SpenceJudith Caroline "Judy" Spence is an Australian politician and member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly for the Australian Labor Party since the 1989 election. She represented Mount Gravatt until 2009, but after a redistribution she switched to Sunnybank, which covered much of the same territory...
, said that using nigger would be unacceptable, for the stand or on any commemorative plaque. The 2005 book The N Word: One Man's Stand by Hagan includes this episode.
Place names
The word nigger features in official place-names, such as "Nigger Bill Canyon", "Nigger HollowDaniel Hughes (underground railroad)
Daniel Hughes was a conductor, agent and station master in the Underground Railroad based in Loyalsock Township, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania in the United States. He was the owner of a barge on the Pennsylvania Canal and transported lumber from Williamsport on the West Branch Susquehanna River...
", and "Niggertown Marsh
Niggertown Marsh
Niggertown Marsh was the original name of a Civil War era rural marsh community that is notable for being one of the first recorded settlements in Florida, run and maintained entirely by freed slaves, or Freedmen, after the end of the U.S. Civil War....
". In 1967, the United States Board on Geographic Names
United States Board on Geographic Names
The United States Board on Geographic Names is a United States federal body whose purpose is to establish and maintain uniform usage of geographic names throughout the U.S. government.-Overview:...
changed the word nigger to Negro in 143 place names. First changed to "Negrohead Mountain", a peak above Santa Monica
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...
, California was renamed on (February 2010) to Ballard Mountain in honor of John Ballard, a black pioneer who settled the area in the 19th Century. "Nigger Head Mountain", at Burnet
Burnet, Texas
Burnet is a city in and the county seat of Burnet County, Texas, United States. The population was 4,735 at the 2000 census.Both the city and the county were named for David Gouverneur Burnet, the first president of the Republic of Texas. He also served as Vice President during the...
, Texas, was so named because the forest atop it resembled a black man's hair. In 1966, the US First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson
Lady Bird Johnson
Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor Johnson was First Lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969 during the presidency of her husband Lyndon B. Johnson. Throughout her life, she was an advocate for beautification of the nation's cities and highways and conservation of natural resources and made that...
, denounced the racist name, asking the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and the U.S. Forest Service
United States Forest Service
The United States Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands, which encompass...
to rename it, becoming "Colored Mountain" in 1968; and in West Texas
West Texas
West Texas is a vernacular term applied to a region in the southwestern quadrant of the United States that primarily encompasses the arid and semi-arid lands in the western portion of the state of Texas....
, "Dead Nigger Creek" was renamed "Dead Negro Draw". "Nigger Nate Grade", near Temecula
Temecula, California
Temecula is a city in southwestern Riverside County, California, United States with a population of 100,097 according to the 2010 United States Census, making it the lowest populated American city over 100,000 population. It was incorporated on December 1, 1989...
, California, named for Nate Harrison, an ex-slave and settler, was renamed "Nathan Harrison Grade Road" in 1955, at the request of the NAACP
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
.
In northwestern North America, particularly in Canada and the US, there are places which feature many uses of the word nigger. At Penticton, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, Canada, "Niggertoe Mountain" was renamed Mount Nkwala
Mount Nkwala
Mount Nkwala, formerly Niggertoe Mountain, is a mountain in the Okanagan Valley of the Southern Interior of British Columbia, located immediately west of and overlooking the city of Penticton and the south end of Okanagan Lake.-Name origin:...
. The place-name derived from a 1908 Christmas story about three black men who died in a blizzard; the next day, the bodies of two were found at the foot of the mountain. A point on the Lower Mississippi River
Lower Mississippi River
The Lower Mississippi River is the portion of the Mississippi River downstream of Cairo, Illinois. From the confluence of the Ohio River and Upper Mississippi River at Cairo, the Lower flows just under 1600 kilometers to the Gulf of Mexico...
, in West Baton Rouge Parish
West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana
West Baton Rouge Parish is one of the sixty-four parishes in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and is the smallest in total area. The parish seat is Port Allen and as of 2010, the population was 23,788. The parish has a highly-rated school system and is one of the few in Louisiana that has privatized...
, named "Free Nigger Point" until the late twentieth century, first was renamed "Free Negro Point", but currently is named "Wilkinson Point". "Nigger Head Rock", protruding from a cliff above Highway 421, north of Pennington Gap
Pennington Gap, Virginia
Pennington Gap is the most populous town in Lee County, Virginia, United States. The population was 1,781 at the 2000 census.The Lee Regional Medical Center is in Pennington Gap, and the United States Penitentiary, Lee is nearby.-Geography:...
, Virginia, was renamed "Great Stone Face" in the 1970s.
The N-word euphemism
The euphemismEuphemism
A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...
the N-word became mainstream American English usage during the racially contentious murder trial
O. J. Simpson murder case
The O. J. Simpson murder case was a criminal trial held in Los Angeles County, California Superior Court from January 29 to October 3, 1995. Former American football star and actor O. J...
of ex-footballer O. J. Simpson
O. J. Simpson
Orenthal James "O. J." Simpson , nicknamed "The Juice", is a retired American collegiate and professional football player, football broadcaster, and actor...
in 1995.
Key prosecution witness Detective Mark Fuhrman
Mark Fuhrman
Mark Fuhrman is a former detective of the Los Angeles Police Department , known for his part in the investigation of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman and his subsequent felony conviction for perjury...
, of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) – who denied using racist language on duty – impeached himself with his prolific use of nigger in tape recordings about his police work. The recordings, by screenplay writer Laura McKinney, were from a 1985 research session wherein the detective assisted her with a screenplay about LAPD policewomen. Fuhrman excused his use of the word saying he used nigger in the context of his "bad cop
Good cop/Bad cop
Good cop/bad cop, known in British military circles as Mutt and Jeff and also called joint questioning and friend and foe, is a psychological tactic used for interrogation....
" persona. Linguistically, the popular press reporting and discussing Fuhrman’s testimony substituted the N-word in place of nigger.
Homophones
occurs in Latinate scientific nomenclature and is the root word for some homophoneHomophone
A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms...
s of nigger; sellers of niger seed (used as bird feed), sometimes use the name Nyjer seed. The classical Latin pronunciation
Latin spelling and pronunciation
Latin spelling or orthography refers to the spelling of Latin words written in the scripts of all historical phases of Latin from Old Latin to the present. They all use some phase of the same alphabet even though conventional spellings may vary from phase to phase...
/ˈniɡeɾ/ sounds like the English /ˈnɪɡər/, occurring in biologic and anatomic names, such as Hyoscamus niger (black henbane), and even for animals that are not in fact black, such as Sciurus niger (fox squirrel).
Nigra is the Latin feminine form of niger (black), used in biologic and anatomic names such as substantia nigra
Substantia nigra
The substantia nigra is a brain structure located in the mesencephalon that plays an important role in reward, addiction, and movement. Substantia nigra is Latin for "black substance", as parts of the substantia nigra appear darker than neighboring areas due to high levels of melanin in...
(black substance).
The word niggardly (miserly) is etymologically unrelated to nigger, derived from the Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
word nig (stingy) and the Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
word nigon. In the US, this word has been misheard or misread to mean nigger, therefore being taken as offensive. In January 1999, David Howard, a white Washington, D.C. city employee, was compelled to resign after using niggardly — in a financial context — while speaking with black colleagues, who took umbrage. After reviewing the misunderstanding, Mayor Anthony Williams
Anthony A. Williams
Anthony Allen "Tony" Williams is an American politician who served as the fifth mayor of the District of Columbia for two terms, from 1999 to 2007. He had previously served as chief financial officer for the District, managing to balance the budget and achieve a surplus within two years of...
offered to reinstate Mr Howard, who refused reinstatement for another job elsewhere in the mayor's government.
The portmanteau word wigger
Wigger
Wigger is a pejorative slang term for a white person who emulates mannerisms, language, and fashions associated with African-American culture, particularly hip hop in the United States or the Grime/Garage scene in Britain. The term is a portmanteau of either wannabe or white and nigger...
(white + nigger) denotes an adolescent white boy emulating "street black behavior", hoping acceptance to the hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
, thug, and gangsta
Gangsta rap
Gangsta Rap is a subgenre of hip hop music that evolved from hardcore hip hop and purports to reflect urban crime and the violent lifestyles of inner-city youths. Lyrics in gangsta rap have varied from accurate reflections to fictionalized accounts. Gangsta is a non-rhotic pronunciation of the word...
sub-cultures.
Intragroup versus intergroup usage
Black hearers often react differently to the term when it is used by white speakers and by black speakers. In the former case, it is regularly understood as an insult; in the latter, it may carry notes of in-group disparagement, or even be understood as neutral or affectionate, a possible instance of reappropriationReappropriation
Reappropriation is the cultural process by which a group reclaims—re-appropriates—terms or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group. For example, since the early 1970s, much terminology referring to homosexuality—such as gay, queer, and faggot—has been reappropriated...
.
Among the black community, the slur nigger is almost always rendered as nigga
Nigga
Nigga is a term used in African American Vernacular English that began as an eye dialect form of the word nigger .- Use in language :In practice, its use and meaning are...
, a pronunciation emphasizing the unique intra-racial dialect of black people. A self-referential pronoun
Pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
in African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English
African American Vernacular English —also called African American English; less precisely Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular , or Black Vernacular English —is an African American variety of American English...
usage popularized by the rap
Rap
Rap may refer to:*Rapping, performance in which rhyming lyrics are used, with or without musical accompaniment ; while an MC performs spoken verses in time to a beat/ melody**Hip hop subculture**Hip hop music...
and hip-hop music cultures. In these situations, it is used as in-group lexicon and speech, wherein it is not necessarily derogatory.
Acceptance of intra-group usage of the word "nigga" is still debated, although it has established a foothold amongst younger generations. The NAACP advocates against the usage of both "nigga" and "nigger". Mixed-race usage of "nigga" is still considered taboo, particularly if the speaker is white. However, trends indicate that usage of the term in intragroup settings is increasing even amongst white youth due to the popularity of rap and hip hop culture.
According to Arthur K. Spears (Diverse Issues in Higher Education, 2006)
In many African-American neighborhoods, nigga is simply the most common term used to refer to any male, of any race or ethnicity. Increasingly, the term has been applied to any person, male or female. "Where y’all niggas goin?" is said with no self-consciousness or animosity to a group of women, for the routine purpose of obtaining information. The point: Nigga is evaluatively neutral in terms of its inherent meaning; it may express positive, neutral or negative attitudes;
While Kevin Cato observes:
For instance, a show on Black Entertainment Television, a cable network aimed at a black audience, described the word nigger as a "term of endearment." "In the African American community, the word nigga (not nigger) brings out feelings of pride" (Davis 1). Here the word evokes a sense of community and oneness among black people. Many teens I interviewed felt that the word had no power when used amongst friends, but when used among white people the word took on a completely different meaning. In fact, comedian Alex Thomas on BET stated, "I still better not hear no white boy say that to me... I hear a white boy say that to me, it means 'White boy, you gonna get your ass beat.'"
See also
- Controversies about the word "niggardly"
- Cultural appropriationCultural appropriationCultural appropriation is the adoption of some specific elements of one culture by a different cultural group. It describes acculturation or assimilation, but can imply a negative view towards acculturation from a minority culture by a dominant culture. It can include the introduction of forms of...
- DiscriminationDiscriminationDiscrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
- Guilty or Innocent of Using the N WordGuilty or Innocent of Using the N WordGuilty or Innocent of Using the N Word is a 2006 documentary directed by British director, Bhavna Malkani, in Warsaw, capital of Poland.The documentary explores questions and issues surrounding the word "nigger" that many feel constrained to discuss, as is often categorized as a taboo word...
- Kaffir (ethnic slur)Kaffir (ethnic slur)The word kaffir, sometimes spelled kaffer or kafir, is an offensive term for a black person, most common in South Africa and other African countries...
- List of ethnic group names used as insults
- List of ethnic slurs
- List of topics related to Black and African people
- NiggaNiggaNigga is a term used in African American Vernacular English that began as an eye dialect form of the word nigger .- Use in language :In practice, its use and meaning are...
- "Niggas vs. Black PeopleNiggas vs. Black People"Niggas vs. Black People" is the title of one of Chris Rock's most famous and most controversial bits. This bit, which appeared as track 12 on his 1997 album, Roll With the New, as well as his 1996 HBO special, Bring the Pain, is widely considered to be the breakthrough routine that established...
" - ProfanityProfanityProfanity is a show of disrespect, or a desecration or debasement of someone or something. Profanity can take the form of words, expressions, gestures, or other social behaviors that are socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude, vulgar, obscene, desecrating, or other forms.The...
- RacismRacismRacism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
- ReappropriationReappropriationReappropriation is the cultural process by which a group reclaims—re-appropriates—terms or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group. For example, since the early 1970s, much terminology referring to homosexuality—such as gay, queer, and faggot—has been reappropriated...
- TabooTabooA taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...
- The Student as NiggerThe Student as NiggerThe Student as Nigger is the title of an essay and subsequent book by American educator Jerry Farber.The essay first appeared in the Los Angeles Free Press in 1967 and is often cited as one of the first underground publications to receive widespread recognition...
(essay) - WiggerWiggerWigger is a pejorative slang term for a white person who emulates mannerisms, language, and fashions associated with African-American culture, particularly hip hop in the United States or the Grime/Garage scene in Britain. The term is a portmanteau of either wannabe or white and nigger...
- With Apologies to Jesse JacksonWith Apologies to Jesse Jackson"With Apologies to Jesse Jackson" is the first episode of the American animated television series South Park, and the 153rd episode overall. It first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on March 7, 2007...
, an episode of an animated comedy series, South ParkSouth ParkSouth Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
, in which StanStan MarshStanley Randall "Stan" Marsh is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is voiced by and loosely based on series co-creator Trey Parker. Stan is one of the show's four central characters, along with his friends Kyle Broflovski, Kenny McCormick, and Eric Cartman...
's dad, Randy becomes a social pariah after saying "niggers" on Wheel of FortuneWheel of Fortune (U.S. game show)Wheel of Fortune is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin, which premiered in 1975. Contestants compete to solve word puzzles, similar to those used in Hangman, to win cash and prizes determined by spinning a large wheel. The title refers to the show's giant carnival wheel that... - Profanity by language
- Category of English profanity
External links
- Analysis of the cultural uses of the word Nigga by Alex Alonso of Street Gangs Magazine
- "Nigger and Caricatures," Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, Ferris State University
- "Nigger (the word), a brief history!" from the African American Registry
- Appropriating a Slur in M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture
- "Let's Make a Deal on the N-Word: White folks will stop using it, and black folks will stop pretending that quoting it is saying it," John McWhorterJohn McWhorterJohn Hamilton McWhorter V is an American linguist and political commentator. He is the author of a number of books on language and on race relations. His linguistic specialty is creole and the process through which it forms.-Early life:...
, The Root